Many differing methods to track heroin overdoses at county, state levels could cloud real impact of drug

Jeannie Richards, of Waterford, with a photo of her son Bryan, who died of a heroin overdose in 2011, pictured Thursday November 14, 2013. She has started a group dedicated to heroin addiction awareness. (Oakland Press Photo:Vaughn Gurganian)

The walls are painted a unique shade of blue that her son, Bryan, picked out when he was 13 years old. Some of Bryan’s old tennis shoes line the closet, along with a dusty, black Detroit Tigers baseball hat that was his favorite.

The room hasn’t changed much since Bryan’s death in 2012 at 26. His death certificate listed the cause as an overdose, a suicide from taking too many prescription pills. But Jeannie knew there was more to the story.

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“I saw a spoon next to his bed, put it in a baggy and took it to the medical examiner’s office,” said Jeannie. “I thought I had found a clue. … Bryan had been using heroin for two years.”

An examination of death records in Michigan and across the country by The Oakland Press and Digital First Media shows a large discrepancy in a perceived growing use of heroin and overdose deaths, and reporting that makes it nearly impossible to know just how many have died from it.

That’s because there’s no central place to report direct heroin deaths, and because heroin breaks down quickly in the body, making it difficult to name as a cause of death with scientific certainty.

A quick look at who reports and who doesn’t shows the problem:

◘ Oakland County doesn’t officially track the number of heroin-related deaths in the county; the state reported 16 from 2010-2012. However, county records show at least 59 died from heroin-related causes in 2013.

◘ Macomb County reported 191 deaths in 2010-2012; the Michigan Department of Community Health counted 202.

◘ Wayne County doesn’t report directly to the state, due to multiple drugs often listed as a cause of death. The state numbers for 2010-2012 total 179 heroin-related deaths.

◘ Genesee County, which does not capture the heroin-related death data on its own, had 84 deaths in 2010-2012, according to the state.

While the MDCH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta get their data from death certificates, many counties do their own investigations, which include toxicology reports, medical histories and more. Some counties, such as Oakland, don’t have a system that pulls strictly heroin-related death data, while others — Wayne County, for example — directly report to the MDCH.

Oakland County Medical Examiner’s Office Administrator Bob Gerds said heroin-related deaths are difficult to classify simply because of how quickly heroin breaks down in the body — aside from the discrepancies in data gathering across the state.

“A metabolite called 6-Monoacetylmorphine, or 6-MAM, has to be present in the body in order for it to be classified as a heroin death,” Gerds said.

But 6-MAM has a very short half-life of six to 25 minutes, said county Forensic Toxicologist Diana Schell. After seven half-lives — 42 minutes to three hours, sometimes less — the compound is not even detectable except through time-consuming toxicology screenings.

While 16 heroin-related deaths in two years in Oakland may not seem like much, Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard recently said heroin use has jumped 300 percent since last year.

Other counties, including Macomb, Wayne, Genesee and Washtenaw, have also reported a rise in the deaths from 2010-2012, according to the MDCH.

Keeping better track of where heroin is prevalent is a start to learning how to combat the problem, said Jan Ivinson from Royal Oak.

Her son Tom started using heroin in 2004. He didn’t die from an overdose, however. He was murdered in 2010 over a $150 debt involving the drug, she said.

Ivinson said that even if the numbers are misleading, she’s grateful for the amount of support she’s seen from awareness groups that have sprouted with the increase in heroin use in the community.

“I can’t even begin to imagine that happening five years ago, when we were shuttered in our own houses trying to help our own kids,” she said.

Jeannie Richards also says more needs to be done, that people need to know how bad the problem is so help can be offered in areas with high usage and death rates.

For more than a year, she’s been reaching some via Bryan’s HOPE, an outreach group seeking to destigmatize heroin addiction and bring awareness and resources to bear.

“I’m pretty sure that they could tell you how many drunk drivers (there were) or how many murders with a gun,” said Jeannie of her support for a stronger data set for heroin-related deaths. “We need to get those numbers, to know if we’re winning, if we’re improving.”

About the Author

John Turk covers the police beat and the Oakland County Board of Commissioners for The Oakland Press. He is a graduate of Eastern Michigan University. Reach the author at john.turk@oakpress.com
or follow John on Twitter: @jrturk.